


Turn It Into Love

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28411938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: Hope learns, love grows.And grows.And grows.
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Hope Solo
Kudos: 17





	Turn It Into Love

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt**   
>  _Do you like writing drama? If so, how about the process of Kelley going through a difficult delivery and Hope being the protective worrier that she is._

You’ve been in love with her for what feels like forever. 

Sometimes you wonder if you’ve loved her since the first moment she said your name.

Sometimes you wonder if you’ve loved her longer, if you were born loving her. 

Sometimes it feels like you have. 

Like you’ve spent every day of your life learning how to love, learning how to be the person who falls in love with her. 

How to be the woman she falls in love with.

Every day you wake and think–you couldn’t love her more than this day, this morning, this moment. 

And every breath you take, you realize, you can. 

There’s always more. 

Always. 

—–

Five years. 

Five years together. 

Wins and losses. 

Arguments in the kitchen.

Naps on the living room couch. 

Sleepless nights spent as one in the big bed you share, the light of the moon illuminating the curves of her body, the sweat that gathers at the base of her spine, in the hollow of her collarbone. 

She dances for you, your jersey swaying against her thighs. She dances and laughs and you sit in bed and watch, feeling like nothing could ever threaten the smile that stretches across your face. 

“Kelley,” you laugh as she loses her balance, as she falls into you and presses you back against the sheets. 

An accident, maybe, but your favorite kind. 

Hers.

—–

Your love for her, it grows. 

She brings you daisies she picked from your garden, and the scent surrounds you for days. Everywhere you turn, you smell the fresh spring air, you feel the warm sunshine that follows her smile. 

She teases you until you pout, and you remember how to stop taking yourself, your life, so seriously. You remember laughter and running down the streets chasing fireflies until the sun goes down. You learn to let that piece of you free, the innocence that believes in miracles and dreams and wishes on stars. 

And what better proof than her, your heart whispers. 

She wears white and you take her name and this, you think to yourself, has to be the height of the mountain, the sum of all your love. 

But in the morning you wake and see her hair spread across your pillow, feel the weight of her head upon your chest, the gentle breeze of her breath against your breast, and you remember–you’re hers. You’re a promise and a vow. You’re hers and she’s yours. 

And you think you know what love means–what it truly means–at last.

—–

You have no idea. 

She grows, your child nestled safely inside. 

She grows and your heart grows and you spend your nights watching her sleep, wondering how it fits, everything you feel, under your ribs. It’s the most beautiful sort of pressure, this love that expands within your chest. 

It steals your breath away. 

You watch her sleep, two miracles there just within reach, just at your side in the dark night. And if you press a hand to her cheek, if you lay your palm gently against the round home of your child, and wake her, you can’t feel sorry.

Because she’ll turn into you, Kelley will, and throw a firm leg over your hip, an arm across your belly. And you’ll fall asleep feeling a brand new life moving within her, hearing the soft, gentle words she whispers into your skin as she falls back asleep. 

A sleepy “love you” as she drifts off. 

—–

You had no idea.

How could you. 

How could you know until you almost lose her. 

How could you know until the moment you thought you would have to say goodbye.

—–

It starts so innocently.

Pain. Waters. 

Her hand around yours, tight and strong. 

The sound of her voice in your ears, familiar and yet so new, so different. How she breathed in time with your prompting, how she shouted and yelled, how she grimaced and grunted with the effort of bringing a miracle into the world. 

And then that first cry, the first gasping breath. 

The sound of Kelley’s happy, disbelieving laughter, the sight of tears rolling down her face. As you know they were yours. 

You think you’ve never loved her as much as you do in this moment. 

Red-faced and sweaty. 

Exhausted, crying, 

The happiest you’ve ever seen her as she takes in the squalling infant held up by the doctor at the end of the bed. 

Your daughter. 

The wish you made together. 

The dream she brought to life.

—–

It’s perfect, this moment. 

The cool metal of the scissors in your hand, the wet warmth of your daughter as you cut her cord, the last link that binds her to her mother, to your wife, to the first love of your life. 

And there she is, the second. 

Howling mad, hands in fists as you take her into your arms for the first time. 

You’re not sure you’ll ever be able to put her down.

—–

It starts suddenly. 

Kelley’s tired eyes. 

An alarm, another. 

Doctors and nurses moving in and out of the room. 

Shouting and working, lines and types and words that terrify your very soul.

And for the first time, the first time since she threw herself into your life, you feel alone. 

—–

She wakes, and gives you a sleepy smile, and there it is, the sun. The warm rays of her love, the world righted once more. 

You’ve one hand in the warm, plastic bassinet at your side, feeling the tiny rise and fall of your daughter’s chest, and with the other you brush a hair off of her cheek, her skin so unnaturally pale under the harsh hospital lights. 

“Hey, love,” you whisper, and feel the tears gather again.

Happy tears this time. Tears of relief. Of joy. Of hope restored. 

But still, you smile. 

You have every reason in the world to smile.

“You gave us all a scare, Kel,” you tell her, as if such a small word could encompass the terror that’s gripped your heart over the past days. Over the waiting and the watching and the wishing on stars. 

“S’ry,” she croaks, and you can’t help but to laugh. Softly. Lovingly. 

God, you were not ready to contemplate the world without her love, your life without her there beside you. Your daughter without this beautiful woman here to guide her, to teach her, to show her all the joy that life holds.

And you’re crying now, openly, mourning all the things you could have lost. 

“Don’t,” Kelley says, her voice still thick with sleep, with the drugs that threaten to take her back under, “no cry’ng.”

But you can’t help it. And you can’t stop. 

It overwhelms you, the possibilities of almost. 

You almost lost her.

She almost died. 

—–

But she didn’t.

She lived.

Kelley lived.

And it’s knowing this that gives you strength again. You, who have always been so strong. 

Now you know. It’s Kelley who makes you stronger. Her love, the love you have for her. 

Strength is love in action. 

And you realize, you’re not afraid anymore. 

She lived. 

She loves you. 

She gave you a child. 

This kind of love, it’s forever. 

This kind of love, it lasts. 

—–

“Careful, careful,” you caution quietly, hands hovering over them. 

But you needn’t have worried. 

She’s still healing, still weak, still recovering. But her hands are steady as she holds her daughter–your daughter–for the first time. 

Kelley smiles down at the infant, and you know, you know exactly what’s going through her head. 

This miracle made flesh, this sign of your love. 

Committing every feature to memory–the sandy hair, the button nose, the eyes, a murky blue. The weight of her, the scent, the way her mouth curves upward in a way you know will be the end of you some day. 

And she looks at you, just a fleeting moment, catching your eye. 

You see your heart and soul reflected there. 

You see your whole damn life, full of Kelley and this beautiful baby. 

Watching them, watching her, you realize–this is what love is. 

So much bigger, so much greater than before. 

You understand the whole of it, how there’s no limit, no end. 

How love begets love begets love. 

How the world spins and turns and heals itself, love the movement, the motion, the very fabric of life itself. 

Love is the fall and the rise, the loss and the recovery, the needle and the haystack and the searcher, all in one. 

Everything, 

—–

“I love you,” you whisper along her brow, tucked into that small hospital bed together, your sleeping daughter on your chest as the morning sun breaks through the window. 

And you understand, now, love. 

How it grows. 

And grows. 

And grows. 


End file.
